I threw out books.

[lindysalsagal]

Seriously. Ok. Recycled.

I'm of a generation where we worshipped books.

No longer. You can google a video for anything.

So, I threw out books. I filled a rolling recycling bin that I could hide inside of. Kind of scary but I feel lighter.

I think it's a middle-age thing. Lighten the load.

Feels good.

[Thyla]

1. Nope, couldn't do it even if I wanted to.

I like books and prefer written(with pictures) instructions to youtube although that can be quite useful too.
Even if I had to downsize I would make sure they would reach the hands of those that would benefit from reading.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. "Even if I had to downsize....."

Hey, welcome to DU, good book buddy!

Having that exact same problem right now.
Except there are not a lot of people in my area who read my mostly non-fiction books.
The best I can do is give them to the library for book funds sales.

[Thyla]

19. Thanks for the welcome

Yeah I have no idea what people would make of our collection, it's a bit eclectic. But if I thought they were going to be read eventually I would be ok with that.

[beveeheart]

30. I took over a hundred books to the library

for its book sale three months ago. Felt good.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. We may be the last generation to experience the pleasure of opening a real book for the first time.

Reading a real book is not at all comparable to using an e-reader.

[beveeheart]

33. I have an e-reader but prefer real books. The ESL class

that I teach weekly is in the library, so every Wednesday I bring home 5 -10 books of both fiction and non-fiction and almost always include one new cookbook. (Some time ago I had over 250 cookbooks, down to only 50 now. I use food websites a lot instead of buying any new ones though I do love to look at the beautiful food photography in books.)

[dixiegrrrrl]

42. I keep my recipes on the Nook, it is so handy to use in the kitchen.

I can set teh font size to what I need, no more squinting at too small print. Cut and paste website recipes to make a pdf copy takes seconds.
Long as I keep it away from the prep. counter, it works great.

[niyad]

40. welcome to du--completely understand your view on books.

[Cartoonist]

2. I can't part with mine

I would sell many of them, but there are no buyers.

[RandomAccess]

11. Yes, that was my experience when I moved 8 years ago

and seriously needed to downsize. I was really bummed about that. Still am.

I still have far too many books and am now willing to let them go, but -- I'm sure it's the same thing or worse than 8 years ago. All these are in really excellent condition, too. Heartbreaking.

We do have a Books by the Pound store that takes in trades and you can only buy their credits there - along with 50% of the price of the book. IOW, 50% store credit from your trade-ins, 50% cash.

[lindysalsagal]

3. Nobody wants those books I recycled. Can't give them away.

[First Speaker]

4. If I did that, I'd be traumatized for weeks...

...no kidding. I'm of that same generation, and except when they get so moldy or water-logged that they *have* to go, I still have all my books. (And even that is emotionally a blow.) I'm a huge SF/Fantasy fan...and I still have hundreds of old paperbacks from the 50s and 60s that my Dad collected. I still have all his classic Galaxy magazines from the 50s. I still have old editions of classic SF published by Gnome Press in the 50s. I still have all his old copies of Yank from World War Two. And of course, I've added thousands of my own... Yeah, yeah--I know it's obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive, whatever name you want to call it. Yeah, I know how much goddam space they take up. It's worth it all. They're part of my identity, and will stay with me until I go to that great used bookstore in the sky...

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. You must have some great collector's books by now.

If you could find them, they could make you some money plus you would know they are in appreciative hands.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

36. Consider eventually donating them

to the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, formerly the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Or to the Jack Williamson collection at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM. Or maybe even to George RR Martin because he'd make sure they were well taken care of.

[fierywoman]

5. I gave boxes and boxes and boxes away to our wonderful library,

who sells them. I still need to get rid of more. ("Does it spark joy?" -- then it becomes obvious what needs to go.)

[lindysalsagal]

6. When I cleared out my old music scores, I donated them. But this stuff if junk.

[Lars39]

7. I got rid of my paperback collection.

Going digital with my kindle paper white. Feels weird, though.

[yellowdogintexas]

28. subscribe to bookbub

and others like it

www.bookbub.com

tons of free and cheap Ebooks, with links to Amazon so you can read the sample. You pick your favorite categories and get a daily email with some selections.

I have discovered some fun series and new authors

[Lars39]

29. I love bookbub!

Been tucking away quite a few new authors and books that way. Also using Goodreads to keep lists of authors and books.

[MissMillie]

8. NPR did a story about this a while ago.

Not even libraries are taking the used books anymore.

[Jim Lane]

12. That was my experience (libraries rejecting)

After my father died, my mother and I took a big load of his books to the local library, which accepted them. The library runs a used-book store for the donations that don't go into the lending collection.

By the time my mother died, though, a few years later, the library was no longer accepting book donations.

[hunter]

9. By the ton, books are among the most common objects in our house...

...possibly outweighing the furniture, certainly outweighing the large appliances.

I ripped all our CDs to ogg files a few years back so those are no longer taking up shelf space in our library, but they are boxed in the garage.

Both my wife and I read books electronically but find it difficult to give up the physical books even when we have electronic versions.

[procon]

10. I used to have a much beloved library wall in my old house.

I've had a lifelong love of books and a crazy, eclectic curiosity about almost everything. I treasured that wall of hardbound books, but then we downsized and the new place didn't have any space for my book collection. They still remain encased in sealed storage barrels. When I had to part with hundreds of paperbacks before the move -- into the rubbish bin, no less! -- I felt traumatized by the sacrilege, as if a part of me had been ripped away.

Now I limit myself to reading fiction on my Kindle, avoiding buying nonfiction books because when I'm gone no one will appreciate my books, and no one wants them. Likely, they would be tossed or used as kindling. I could weep, but it's pointless to get upset about the inevitable.

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. I like the e-reader, esp. when I am in waiting rooms, and bedtime reading.

But it does not provide the feel of a book, nor the pleasant anticipation of opening a book for the first time, that we book lovers grew up with. Which explains why I have way too many real books.

Then again, deleting a book from the Nook is not at all heart wrenching.

[Duppers]

13. We're having to do that

But it's sooo painful since hubs & I both have strong sentimental attachment issues. Paperbacks are not a problem but we draw the line with our leather-bound beauties, some of which cannot be found online. Our son can deal with them when we croak.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. I took a bunch of books to my local VA hospital.

They have racks of books in every waiting room.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. I never throw books away. I used to sell them to a secondhand bookstore, but

now I have one of those Little Free Libraries and that's where I put books that I don't want any more. They always seem to find homes, or at least circulate.

[Upthevibe]

18. I don't think I've ever thrown a book away either....I just can't...

I went back to college as a full-time working adult and received my Bachelor's Degree in '98. I will NEVER let those books go. They're just too full of memories...Good memories....

[Floyd R. Turbo]

21. Donated mine to the library a couple of years ago!

[UTUSN]

22. My peak number was 300 by school days' end. Over the decades I culled them down to about

Last edited Sun Mar 11, 2018, 06:02 PM - Edit history (7)

150 in different sessions. Donated to libraries. Back while in school a dude had a for-sale sign on his saying he had finished with Philosophy presumably because he knew it all. I arrived at boot camp lugging a boxful and the dude in charge about teared up telling us our "extra" stuff was being shpped home. A few years ago the shift to e-devices was finally taking hold for me, and I rudely said to an ancient professor cluttering/clogging seats and aisle on a tiny plane, "You know, you can fit a thousand books in one little electronic device now." Probably not his specialzed books. Not all rudeness, dragging him slightly in my own slow wake.

I'm so not adapted to e-reading, far prefer paper, except for internet.

[red dog 1]

23. I never throw books out,

and as a result, I now have many, many boxes of books stored in all of my closets.

(I have one book, a Harper's compendium, that's about 175 years old)

[Codeine]

24. I wont toss my books, but I dont buy them

in physical form much anymore. Anything like that I purchase is digital, even my comics, with the occasional exception of older books not available on Kindle. Those I purchase used through AbeBooks.

[yellowdogintexas]

25. Same here. I broke down and got a Kindle specifically to not order actual books

With Certain Exceptions which are serials we both like and have collected.
and A Certain Series With A Long Overdue Sixth Volume which shall remain nameless,

[shenmue]

26. NOOOOOOOO

[Shrike47]

27. I give them to Friends of the Library, which sells them at a big sale twice a year.

I have volunteered at the sale, too.

St. Vincent de Paul takes used books where I live. As they like to say, biggest book store in town.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

32. Now that Im in my dotage,

my books can be reread with the same enthusiasm and interest as the first time around years ago.

[Skittles]

34. I will stick with books, thanks

I do enough screen time; NOTHING beats curling up with a good book.

[GeorgeHayduke]

35. When I packed-up my former life

and began my new one, I allowed myself to keep twenty precious books out of hundreds. The rest I donated to the jail (softcover only) and the hardcovers I dropped in a "books for kids" bin.

Consequently, there are prisoners reading about sustainable food systems and feminist perspectives on evironmental toxicology and toddlers studying calculus 3 and parousing the Merck Index.

Hey, I aim to challenge perspectives.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

37. That's sad.

Some libraries still take book donations and have book sales several times a year. Nursing homes would probably appreciate donations. Or, if you're feeling crafty, build one of those little library boxes people set up outside their homes.

Twice in my life I donated serious numbers of books to someone opening a second hand bookstore. And done serious cullings several other times where I've sold off the books to a second hand store.

I don't buy very many books any more, between space considerations and the cost, but people thinking that real books are going to go away any time soon are simply wrong. Apparently e-books aren't selling as incredibly well as was first projected, and sales of real books are remaining reasonably steady.

I do own a kindle that I inherited last year, and I still don't use it very much. I'm hoping to take a cruise this fall, and if I do I will load several books on it and see how I like it. But I'll probably bring along some real books just the same.

[3catwoman3]

38. In one of our moves, my husband and I had 50 boxes of books!

I am a re-reader of books I have particularly loved (Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Michener's Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, just to name a few).

I would love to have a really tall library wall with one of those rolling ladders.

Mildewed and moldy books do have to go, but it's always a little sad. Some outdated books about exercise have been tossed, and some How To... books that we have admitted we are never going to use. And textbooks from courses I did not like, or that ate very outdated - nursing education has changed a lot since the early 1970s.

One time, I threw out a perfectly intact hardback book because the story was soooooooooooo boring I didn't want to subject anyone else to it by giving it away - The Oldest Living Confederate Widow. Dear gawd, what a tedious slog that book was. I almost gave up on reading it. Once I finished it, I wished I hadn't bothered. Colossal waste of time.

A real physical book is ,for me, so much better than the e-readers. I read relatively quickly, and often need/want to go back to a section to clarify a detail I may have missed because I as going too fast. This is much easier to do with a real book, as I will have a sense of about where I need to go back (a few pages in, first 1/4, mid-book, etc), and I just can't do that with an e-book.

[hunter]

44. Hah! I've thrown away books I don't think anyone else should suffer.

Some "best sellers..."

[herding cats]

39. I got rid of my cheap books a long time back now.

Most I was able to give away, a small handful of low end titles I had to recycle. There was no loss to the literary world there.

I kept my collection of valuable editions and the less valuable ones I simply love.

All my low end literature is now digital.

I put up a photo gallery on the wall my extensive book collection used to cover. It feels good to see it there. If nothing else it’s easier to dust!

[niyad]

41. a friend was telling me last night that, recently, she sold a large stack of books (she

volunteers in a thrift store) to a guy who--- ready for this??-- was not going to read them, but was going to burn them like firewood.

my heart almost stopped.

[alarimer]

43. I've got a bunch of old textbooks that aren't worth anything.

The information in them is outdated or just plain wrong now. So recycling is probably the best option.

[lindysalsagal]

45. 700 views! Wow!

DU needs a hoarding thread.....lol!